Catalog
I can't keep track of what I've written. If you--any of you--even all of you--have a question, I'd welcome it.Last issue (I'm putting on airs) stopped at Tortola, where I rested up, fed up, did some minor rigging repairs and alterations. A neighboring boat held Jan and Jeannette Post and their child, who provided good conversation, a chance to tell my stories to someone new. They sounded interested in the possibility of using Apogee as a base for diving and photography.
In early December my sister joined me in St. Thomas, where she was surprised and pleased (more pleased than surprised) to find we could see Apogee at anchor and walk out the airport gate, across the boulevard and a vacant lot to where I'd left the dinghy (Lindberg Bay). This meant we had time to tie up at the Charlotte Amalie waterfront, shop for a camera for me, and treat ourselves to an ice cream before heading away from the clutter to a quiet anchorage, a first swim for Peg, and a leisurely drink under a splendid sunset.
Next morning, planning our course, I decided to try for a new head (for the boat, not me, though some might say both were sorely needed) before we left St. Thomas. Touching base at the boatyard where I'd holed up on a previous trip, I was lucky enough to find the needed parts while Peg was scouting and loading provisions. That provided plenty of tinkering, glueing, clamping and cursing during the leisurely cruise down wind to Culebra, Vieques - where we gunkholed along the south shore - and on to Ponce and home port of Ensenada. Hurricane Hugo damage everywhere evident - beached boats, trees flattened - from St. Thomas through Vieques, but none on the south shore of PR.
Had a visit right after New Years from my brother Nick and his wife. And in February Stan came down for more than a week, and we tootled about in a rental car.
Ensenada is my Town. Guánica is my Harbor. Guaypao is my Barrio. And the Sector that my shack is located in is La Pieza. Ensenada, once a prosperous sugar mill town, is struggling to survive the many economic difficulties of the closed sugar mill that used to be one of the biggest employers in the area. It survives. Most houses are painted. Many have new Japanese cars. But without food stamps and Uncle Sam's Social Security we'd be hurting real Bad. Of course a New Englander sees Puerto Ricans as being most Improvident. They don't make hay! Uncle Sam's munificent charity does nothing to encourage thrift. A family can live and multiply on the $400/mo that the federal government gives out. Why save?
In order to get a job one needs a car. Nobody with only one house has to pay real estate taxes - great for low-income people, but of course middle and upper classes find loopholes in that, so Nobody pays RE Tax. Mr. Bush wants PR to be independent so that he can save the Social Security. It would be a disaster. Good? Bad? I'm not the one to judge.
My part of PR is as friendly as anywhere in the world that I've been. Not a lot of wealth in this part, but much happiness and contentment. People love their children, and by the dozen too! So I camp out here in the Boonies. My harbor is a very safe one, and my shanty is close enough to the water to spit off the porch into the high tide. My mooring is within sight of the kitchen window.
I have done very little day sailing out of this harbor - been as far as both ends of PR - once to Dominican Republic (Best Beer in the World I think). Our wind pattern consists of very strong Easterly Trade Winds that are not Apogee's real meat and drink, so I'm inclined not to buck them without time and a real inclination. That inclination is being stimulated by the charter I have coming up with Jan Post, the diver-photographer-biologist I met in Tortola. We'll be working the lesser islands between Bonaire and Curacao. But PR is rather unremarkable - much natural beauty, but no more than Maine or Nova Scotia or many other places that I've seen. Tropical of course, which is why I'm here - a refugee from cold weather. Comfortable, acceptable, warm. What more does an old man need?
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